Sunday, April 27, 2014

One Thing Leads To Another...And Another...And Another.

My house is total chaos and it all began because I found a vase I loved for my dining room table. I have no talent with flower arranging so I asked Brenda to help. The vase I bought cost $20 on sale. Brenda and I went to Michael's where I spent way to much on silk flowers to fill the vase. I spent way too much on place mates to put around the vase. I spent way too much on antique plates to put on the place mats. I spent way too much on linen napkins (which I had to buy two sets of because we were told by the elegant lady in the store that style now is to use double napkins) to put on the plates and way too much on napkin rings to put on the napkins.

Furthermore, when Brenda came to work on the flowers, she brought along her beloved tray of rags, cleaning potions, sponges and brushes. Brenda is my clean freak friend. She faces the prospect of cleaning with the same sense of anticipation I get walking into a casino.

I looked at her aghast and asked, "what is all that for?"

She looked back at me in horror. "You're surely not planning to put all this beautiful new stuff in a room without washing down the walls first?"

"I'm not?"

"No," she said firmly, "you're not."

So we spent a week cleaning walls before we could even think about flowers and plates and napkins. She drove me when I thought I couldn't go on but we finally finished. Then I decided to move all the furniture around which we'd moved anyway because we had to get behind it to wash the walls. I'd wanted to wash around it but Brenda said no.

"You'd know all that dirt was still back there."

"But I wouldn't care," I said sullenly.

John had to move my monster old desk/computer unit. It has to be unscrewed and taken apart and is very heavy. I'd always hated that the only place I could put it blocked part of one window (because of the piano which is now gone). Now it is in a corner and looks so much better. I also always disliked Mom's old cupboard by the doorway too. Now it is on a wall of it's own.

Of course, the things in and on the desk had to be taken out and then put back which was a perfect time to sort through it all the accumulated stuff that had landed there over time. I threw away all the floppy disks and the old Polaroid camera and stacks of yellowed greeting cards that various charities had sent Mom in appreciation for her frequent donations (having already disposed of 15 dream catchers and a dozen cross necklaces and approximately 8 million address labels). In addition, all the glassware in the cupboard had to be taken out and washed. I'm replacing one bookcase with another so the books have to be removed from each and traded around.

It has been over a month now and the leaf still isn't in the dining room table. There still isn't a vase of flowers on it or any place mats or plates or napkins.

When I put everything back together on the desk, I was proud that I'd evidently hooked everything up correctly because the computer fired right up, even the internet, then I tried to use the phone and it was dead. I called Metrolink on the dreaded cell and their test showed I had a phone off the hook but I looked and I don't have a phone off the hook. I will probably have to have them come out and they'll find some really stupid thing I did or didn't do.

Once the walls were washed, Brenda looked around appraisingly (and happily).

"You know, we really need to take the drapes down and wash them and probably shampoo the carpet too."

Obviously, she is holding the vase hostage to her cleaning fetish. If the flowers were done, I'd probably just de-friend her but as it, what can I do but go along?